The following content was originally displayed as the home page of Broken Chariots. For posterity, I have kept a record of this past familiar welcome and introduction to the blog.

My name is Ryan and my wife is Annie. We met at a Christian youth conference in 1999. were married in August 2001 and live in Worcester, England. I am a Pastor and my wife, a school teacher. In our spare time you might find us behind the nearest musical instrument and hymnal. Oh, we have a dog. He’s called Milo but he’ll answer to anything if you wave something mildly edible in his direction.

In 2007 my wife was diagnosed with cancer just before her 31st birthday. I kept a little blog back then to keep friends and family updated as she underwent an intense and somewhat brutal period of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy; but more importantly the blog became a vent to testify to the greatness and goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ through that difficult time. That blog was (and still is) entitled ‘Annie and Chemo‘.

More recently, in July 2011, Annie developed slight respiratory problems and an incessant cough. The doctors treated this as a number of common ailments but we knew their diagnosis wasn’t right. In late August 2011 it became so bad we went to A&E (ER, to our American readers or ‘The Hospital’ to readers who detest abbreviations!). After a day of tests we were told:

“It’s okay. No tumours. No cancerous activity. Probably slight damage to the lung due to the past radiotherapy treatment but nothing serious.”

A couple of weeks later, a Professor in the field took another look at the scans and gave us an all together different picture.

Just over one month ago, on Friday, September 30th, 2011, Annie and I were told by the oncologist that the cancer had returned this time around her lungs. Along with this news came the sting in the tail: the only treatment they could provide could at best give Annie a few months to live.

This article may seem curt but the purpose of this blog is to give our friends, family, brothers and sisters in Jesus far-and-wide, and even the curious stranger as daily an update as possible. I know how important communication is at times like this; I also know how time-consuming it can be on my part. So writing daily journal entries on this blog will hopefully save me the unwanted career in email writing!

I have started this blog a month or so on since the diagnosis. I will try to write a few key back-dated journal entries to fill you in, but will focus on daily updates from today – Tuesday, October 25th 2011.

Our love in Jesus,

Ry and Annie